Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
London
The SPUR Coalition (Standards for Publisher Usage Rights) is a non-profit coalition of news publishers formed to shape the technical and commercial environment in which owners of journalistic content can control and monitor the use of that content by generative AI applications. Its legal entity, The Spur Coalition Limited, is a private company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 17393224). The coalition states that it is not a collective licensing organisation: it develops recommended standards and best practice, and members keep full autonomy over their own commercial relationships with AI companies.
SPUR states that its mission is to establish shared technical standards and responsible licensing frameworks so that AI developers can access high-quality journalism through legitimate channels, while publishers keep practical control of their content and receive fair value when it is used. Its founding open letter committed the coalition to develop shared industry standards, reduce friction in licensing, identify gaps in technical tools for protecting intellectual property, ensure high-value content can be accessed through rights-cleared channels, evaluate existing industry infrastructure, and enable transparent, scalable use of journalistic content. The coalition says it is funded entirely by its members, with its founders contributing the most. Founding members each nominate a board member and help set annual priorities and budget allocation; members can join working groups. Membership is open to organisations worldwide whose primary activity is the creation of original journalism; trade bodies may apply for affiliate membership.
SPUR was founded by the BBC, the Financial Times, Guardian Media Group, Sky News and Telegraph Media Group. Press Gazette reported the launch on 26 February 2026, following FT chief executive Jon Slade’s call in June 2025 for a “NATO for news”. The coalition was announced through an open letter signed by Tim Davie (BBC), Jon Slade (Financial Times), Anna Bateson (The Guardian), David Rhodes (Sky News) and Anna Jones (Telegraph Media Group); SPUR’s own site dates the letter March 2026. SPUR’s publications give the launch both as the end of February 2026 and as March 2026. Mediahuis joined as a founding member on 11 May 2026; CMA Media (France) joined as a founding member on 3 June 2026; and the Associated Press joined as a founding member, and its first US-based founding member, on 9 July 2026. The Spur Coalition Limited was incorporated on 11 August 2026. On 13 October 2026 SPUR said it had more than 80 members in more than 20 countries.
The coalition’s team is led by two co-lead consultants, David Buttle and Dominic Young. SPUR’s announcements describe Buttle as co-founder and spokesperson. Alex Springer is technical lead and maintainer of the Content Telemetry standard and the SPUR telemetry profile. The company’s directors registered at Companies House are Dr Ana Jakimovska, Douglas McCabe and Aimee Nisbet, all appointed on 11 August 2026.
Founding open letter (February/March 2026). An open letter from the five founding chief executives inviting global media leaders to join as founding members, setting out the coalition’s six commitments.
Content Telemetry Standard (draft, 12 June 2026). SPUR published a draft Content Telemetry standard and an accompanying SPUR telemetry profile for public comment via GitHub. The standard defines five events that track content through an AI system: content retrieval, grounded, cited, displayed and engaged. The profile proposes delivering those events in real time, at event level, to an endpoint declared by the content owner. SPUR’s posts give the comment period as 12 June to 10 July 2026 and as 11 June to 10 July; its 9 July announcement said comments were open until 24 July.
Content Telemetry Standard v1.0 (2 October 2026). SPUR released version 1.0 of the open-source standard, a framework for AI agents and model builders to report back to publishers when publisher-owned content is retrieved, grounded, cited, presented and engaged with. SPUR says it is working with industry partners on implementation, proofs of concept and agent tooling, and has launched working groups on evidence and auditing, agent and content identifiers, and advertising influence.
Licensing Advisory Board (announced 2 October 2026). An invitation-only board of organisations that build or own the technical infrastructure between publishers and AI systems, and of organisations that license, or plan to license, journalistic content for AI use.
Membership expansions. On 3 June 2026, at WAN-IFRA’s World News Media Congress in Marseille, SPUR announced 30 new members, including founding member CMA Media and global affiliates WAN-IFRA/FIPP and the European Publishers Council. On 13 October 2026 it announced more than 40 further members, including The New York Times, Agence France-Presse, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Observer and the UK News Media Association.
Address (registered office)
167-169 Great Portland Street, Fifth Floor
London W1W 5PF
United Kingdom
Phone
Email
info@spurcoalition.org (general)
media.enquiries@spurcoalition.org (media)
Website
https://www.spurcoalition.org
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